Methods for Feature Selection in a Learning Machine

1. A computer-implemented method for identifying a pattern within a large dataset, wherein data points in the dataset correspond to a physical measurement and have a plurality of features that describe attributes of the data point, the method comprising: inputting the large dataset into a computer system having a processor and a memory; selecting a feature subset of the large number of features for processing in a learning machine by executing a feature selection algorithm on the dataset to identify the subset of features, wherein the algorithm is selected from the group consisting of l 0 -norm minimization and unbalanced correlation, wherein l 0 -norm minimization comprises finding a smallest number of non-zero elements of a weight vector w in the relationship D(x)=w·x+b, and unbalanced correlation comprises dividing the dataset into unbalanced groups of positive and negative examples and ranking features according to a success criterion for correctly classifying the dataset; processing the feature subset of the data points of the large dataset to identify the pattern; and generating an output to a printer or display device, the output comprising the identified pattern within the large dataset for the feature subset.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the learning machine is a support vector machine.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the algorithm is l 0 -norm minimization and the dataset comprises a multi-label dataset, and further comprising calculating a label set size.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the step of calculating label set size comprises minimizing a ranking loss.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the dataset comprises gene expression data obtained from DNA micro-arrays and the output comprises identities of a group of genes for detecting a disease or condition.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the algorithm is l 0 -norm minimization and the algorithm comprises approximately minimizing l 0 -norm by minimizing l 1 -norm.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the algorithm is l 0 -norm minimization and the algorithm comprises approximately minimizing l 0 -norm by minimizing l 2 -norm.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising mapping the dataset into feature space prior to executing the feature selection algorithm.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the algorithm is unbalanced correlation and the dataset comprises labeled and unlabeled data, the method further comprising using transductive learning to classify the unlabeled data prior to executing the feature selection algorithm.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the dataset comprises gene expression data obtained from DNA micro-arrays and the output comprises identities of a group of genes for detecting a disease or condition.

11. A computer-implemented method for identifying a pattern within a large dataset, wherein the data points in the dataset correspond to physical measurements and each data point has a plurality of features that describe attributes of the data point, the method comprising: inputting the large dataset into a computer system having a processor and a memory; selecting a feature subset of the large number of features for processing in a learning machine by executing a feature selection algorithm on the dataset to identify the subset of features, wherein the algorithm comprises l 0 -norm minimization, wherein l 0 -norm minimization comprises finding a smallest number of non-zero elements of a weight vector w in the relationship D(x)=w·x+b; processing the feature subset of the data points of the large dataset to identify the pattern; and generating an output to a printer or display device, the output comprising the identified pattern within the large dataset for the feature subset.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the learning machine is a support vector machine.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the dataset comprises a multi-label dataset, and further comprising calculating a label set size.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the step of calculating label set size comprises minimizing a ranking loss.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the dataset comprises gene expression data obtained from DNA micro-arrays and the output comprises identities of a group of genes for detecting a disease or condition.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the algorithm comprises approximately minimizing l 0 -norm by minimizing l 1 -norm.

17. The method of claim 11 , wherein the algorithm comprises approximately minimizing l 0 -norm by minimizing l 2 -norm.

18. The method of claim 11 , further comprising mapping the dataset into feature space prior to executing the feature selection algorithm.

19. The method of claim 10 , wherein the large dataset is a prostate cancer database.

20. The method of claim 15 , wherein the large dataset is a prostate cancer database.